Marumo Gallants beat Siwelele 3-2 on Friday night, and on the evidence of our own prediction data, almost nobody in the Prediz community expected it.
Seven fans put a score on that match. Not one of them got it exactly right. Only one came away with the result correct. The most common prediction was 0-1 to Siwelele, submitted by three different fans, a scoreline that assumed Gallants would not score at all.
You can see why people leaned that way. Going into Friday, the Betway Premiership table had Gallants rock bottom on two points from eight matches, the kind of start that makes a clean sheet against them feel like the safer read. Siwelele were not exactly flying either, sitting 14th on six points, but 14th against 16th is usually enough for most people to pick the side above.
Five goals later, that logic is in the bin. A team that had collected two points in eight games found three goals in one night, and the fans who went looking for a low scoring away win were wrong twice over: wrong on the winner, wrong on the volume.
This is the trap of predicting the bottom of the table. Teams down there are not predictable, they are just struggling, and struggling in a different way every week. A side with nothing much to lose turning a game into a 3-2 is far more common than the standings suggest. The tight away win is the lazy default for a fixture between two strugglers, and it collapses the moment one of them has a good night in front of goal.
Both clubs are back out on Wednesday 4 November, Siwelele at home to Orlando Pirates and Golden Arrows hosting Gallants. One fan each has predicted those so far. Worth remembering before you fill them in: Gallants scoring three is now a thing that has actually happened this season, and that changes what a sensible scoreline looks like against a Golden Arrows side the desk has carrying just three goals in seven matches. Two teams that battle to score do not automatically produce 0-0.